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Emperor of Sidhae
The Emperor of Sidhae is the enigmatic and semi-legendary founder of the Imperium of Sidhae and the Sidh race. Revered as a demigod in the present day, the Emperor is a central figure of the modern Sidh ideological and spiritual beliefs. Background Very little is known about the Emperor's origins, much of historical records about him being lost to the sands of time, and the surviving ones being either classified or highly-mythologicized. Contemporary Sidhae revere the Emperor too much to make any serious scientific inquiry in his past, legend and history mixing seamlessly in the modern Sidh mythos. The man that would one day become the Emperor of Sidhae was born somewhere in the Baltic States in the 1980s. The exact location and his original name is known but to a handful of Sidhae, his exact ancestry thus being a great point of contention among the contemporary descendants of Baltic peoples. What is known for a fact that he spent his early life as a soldier, fighting in various NATO foreign interventions. After being abandoned for dead with a handful of comrades during the ill-fated NATO expedition to Karachi during a Third Indo-Pakistan War, the future Emperor would grow profoundly disillusioned and embittered with NATO and ways of the Western world in general, vowing to change them. His opportunity would come soon as the Western nations steadily descended into chaos. European Union fell apart in the late 2010's, its former nations plagued by an immigration crisis and rampant terrorism. Russia had collapsed into a new civil war, and United States was also distracted with trying to avert a civil war of their own. Styling himself as the Leader, the future Emperor would begin the reunification of Europe with the promise to end the terrorism problem, his rallying call initially being one of Pan-European nationalism. His policies were met with unexpected success, much of Europe unifying behind him by 2023 into a European Confederacy. Using the combined military, industrial and technological power of European nations, the Leader launched an intervention in Second Russian Civil war under condition that the European-backed side would join the growing Confederacy in the event of victory. He would also seek alliance with China and India as the two most powerful non-Western nations that had geopolitical interests conflicting with the long-standing hegemony of the United States, against whom the Leader held a particularly bitter resentment. Despite the Americans' best efforts to sabotage the growing anti-Western bloc, Russia did integrate into the Confederacy in 2024, thereafter renamed Eurasian Confederacy, its allies forming the Eurasian Bloc. A new Cold War between the remaining NATO states and EB was on the way. The Confederacy found itself in luck, however, when a Skargh explorer ship crashed on the Moon not far from the recently-established Confed Moon station. Numerous precious artifacts were salvaged, and contact established with the rescue mission that arrived soon thereafter. It is believed that it was this first contact and the first insights into Skargh culture and ways that led the future Emperor to firmly decide that unification of all Mankind had to be achieved at any cost, including the destruction of a half to save the other half. The Leader realized that it was only by a stroke of luck that the Skargh first visiting his homeworld were merchants rather than warriors, and recognized it was only a matter of time until that would change. In order to ensure humanity's survival, Mankind had to expand among the stars united, and reinvent itself to survive against any adversity, and the Leader was prepared to take any measures necessary to see it happen. Using reverse-engineered Skargh technologies, the Confeds would upgrade their armed forces beyond anything then in existence, and launch a surprise attack on the United States in 2027. Despite valiant resistance, the US forces were crushed after 3 years of bitter fighting, their nuclear supremacy neutralized by early generations of manned orbital fighters and bombers, and their powerful but old-fashioned armies falling before the Confed forces that were the first to employ early powered armor, personal energy weapons and boltguns on a large scale among other things. In the end, American resistance wasn't broken by decisive victory, but rather a promise of a place in the glorious future of Mankind. American citizens retained a large degree of their earlier civil liberties and freedoms, and were welcomed into the Confederacy as valiant foes and valuable new allies. The welcoming attitude towards the now-defunct NATO states, however, soured Confederacy's relations with its allies China and India. In 2032, the Eurasian Bloc was dissolved, the former allies of the Confederacy forming their own anti-Confederate pact, regarding their cavorting with former enemies as open betrayal. Despite having a distinct technological advantage, the war-weakened Confederacy didn't have the manpower to oppose the two most populous nations of Earth. A drastic solution was required to even the odds. For this end, the Leader commissioned the very worst of weapons to ever be used by humans upon other humans - the Harvester Plague. A genetically-engineered pestilence, the various strains of the Harvester were designed to target various ethnic groups exclusively. The plague was unleashed in 2039, wiping out almost 2 billion people over a span of just 16 weeks. Decimated by the plague, Chinese and Indian defenses were overwhelmed by the Confederate assault, but not before inflicting heavy casualties by nuclear retaliation that caused heavy damage even with the Confed anti-ballistic defenses in place. The fall of China and India heralded the final unification of Mankind, the remaining independent nations falling or willingly submitting to Confederate rule in short succession. The cost of these two World Wars was terrible, however - Earth's ecosystems were stretched to the point of breaking, a moderate nuclear winter setting in, causing ice to form in the Adriatic in summer and resulting in massive famines in Africa and Middle East. The newly founded Terran Confederacy was hard-pressed to maintain the newly-won unity, imposing increasingly harsh measures against the scores of uprisings and insurgencies that flared up worldwide. The Leader's reign as the head of Terran Confederacy proved short and unpopular. Brutal suppression of unrest became commonplace, the main cause of unrest being his dedication of much of the Confederacy's resources to the newly-conceived interstellar colonization program rather than rebuilding the devastated Terra. Countless people arrested in counter-insurgency ops perished in inhuman experiments with human augmentation, further fuelling unrest. The 2040s cemented the future Emperor's reputation as a brutal tyrant in human memory. Not all humans saw him that way, however. Many, especially those aware of the Skargh threat, still believed in his vision and recognized that his seemingly-immoral actions were in fact the only moral choices to be had. These people, unfortunately, represented a minority, even many of his former soldiers turning against their Leader. In the end, the wave of rebellion and uprising proved too much to contain, the Terran Confederacy falling in 2044 and the Leader leaving Terra with around 20 million of his loyalists aboard the newly-built interstellar colonization fleet. This journey that was the beginning of the Sidh race would enter historical record as the Great Pilgrimage. The Great Pilgrimage Exiled from Terra with no way back, the exodites had to adapt to the new realities of life in outer space. With interstellar travel technology still at its infancy, travel speeds were a fraction of the contemporary. Resources were extremely limited, as was living space. These two aspects came to define the later Sidh culture. It was during this time that Sidh ancestors began to develop their own distinct language and culture. Coming from various predominantly-European backgrounds, the colonists needed a common language. Although most of them spoke English, it was rejected for political reasons, Anglophones having been the predominant enemy for much of the Confederate era. In the end, the academic elite of the exodus fleet agreed on creating a new language based in Latin, a tongue that most of the learned colonists understood at least on basic level. Consequently, much of the modern Sidh glossary was heavily influenced by Latin and Greek. Early Sidhae were also deeply-embittered by the rejection of their compatriots, many wanting to cut any and all ties to the existing Terran cultures and create their own instead. It was in this time that the Leader was granted the title of "Imperator" - Emperor by his devoted followers, being seen as a leader and a prophet in equal measures. The early Sidhae spent 20 years voyaging space in search of a new home - a suitable homeworld. Although Confed scientists had charted numerous potentially-habitable worlds in the years before, all of them turned out to be unsuitable for establishing permanent settlement with the existing resources. As the supplies were dwindling beyond any hope of return, more and more colonists demanded to turn back and tak their chances with returning to Terra. Legend has that the Emperor, faced with pressure and threats of mutiny from the majority of the fleet, begged for three additional days to seek for a new home. After spending three consecutive days in his ship's observatorium, he would manage to spot a habitable Earth-like world hours before the expiration of the agreed term. This world, settled in 2064, would become known as Aedun, the homeworld of the first Sidhae. Early Imperium After firmly settling down on Aedun, the early Sidhae could begin to put their Confederate Era technological know-how to full use. In the early days of Sidh colonization, the apparent need for a rapidly-accelerated procreation became obvious, the Sidhae needing rapid growth in numbers to populate their new home and man the industries necessary to expand. Knowledge accumulated through the brutal experiments back on Terra was hence put to use, eventually resulting in the creation of the first progenitories. As several other habitable worlds were discovered in close proximity and settled, the nascent empire would grow, resulting in the proclamation of an Imperium of Sidhae in 2071. These planets would come to form the so-called "old core worlds". The re-establishment of contact with the nascent Federation of Mankind in late 2070s allowed Sidhae to reacquire the missing pieces of the last 20 years of Terran history. Turned out that post-Confederate Terra had again factionalized roughly along the lines of old nation-states, only to suffer from a divide between Greens, which represented a faction of technocrats and liberals, and Blues, which consisted mainly of ex-Confed military and various religious groups and represented conservative views. The growing tension between these factions and their ideas of how to run the post-Confederate world had eventually devolved into an all-out Final War, devastating Terra in a nuclear exchange in 2065. A significant portion of the population did manage to escape using starships not yet finished in the Confederate era but completed at later dates. Unlike early Sidhae, these later human settlers had a considerably better idea of where to head for, numerous worlds being settled mainly along ethnic lines and joining in a Federation of Mankind a decade later. Although bitterness and hostility lingered between both sides at this time, overall the human and Sidh interactions of this period can be described as peaceful and civil, if cool. The Emperor himself championed a forgive-and-forget policy, positioning his realm and people as protectors and stewards rather than rivals of the rest of Mankind, hoping to eventually lead them towards enlightenment by example. Skargh Wars The Skargh returned with a vengeance in 2092. Having initially misassumed that Old Terra was merely an outer colony of a much larger star empire, they had initially been reluctant to try their luck and attack, a stroke of luck for Humanity. Now that they realized their mistake, the xenos were back for blood, launching a massive assault on the nascent human and Sidh realms. The Emperor, however, had anticipated such an event, the entirety of his subjects having spent the last 50 years preparing for just such an eventuality. The Federation was less prepared, calling to the Emperor for aid upon witnessing his success at holding back the alien menace. The following decade was spent in incessant war, the Emperor assuming joint command of Sidh and human forces against the Skargh and thus earning himself the distinction of the most successful human military commander to ever have lived. Although the Skargh outnumbered Sidhae and humans by a thousand to one, they did make a number of mistakes that cost them dearly. Having never encountered a technologically-advanced spacefaring species before, the Skargh greatly underestimated the technological ingenuity of humans and Sidhae. Their tactics were also, by Terran standards, extremely primitive, largely limited to massive frontal charges and a strong preference for melee combat, there being little in the way of combined arms tactics. Their ships were likewise devised primarily as transports rather than warships, expecting little adversity in space, and consequently fell easy prey to human and Sidh warships. Lastly, it was Skargh own base arrogance that often proved the undoing of even otherwise talented commanders. Such was the humiliation inflicted by joint human/Sidh forces that the Skargh at large began to venerate the Emperor as the avatar of Dregruk, the Skargh god of war, a veneration that persists to this day. Contemporary Skargh believe that Dregruk, disgusted by the complacency of the Skargh back in the day, had chosen to incarnate as an alien and humble them in battle to remind his faithful that victory and supremacy is attained through constant effort rather than resting on past laurels. In the end, the Skargh were forced to sign a humiliating peace treaty in 2104 and recognize the sovereignity of both Federation and Imperium. As a side product of the Skargh Wars, the Emperor founded the Clans in immitation of the Skargh noble houses. With interstellar communication still at its infancy, maintaining a central authority was difficult. Consequently, the Emperor adopted an existing example of a decentralized interstellar empire, creating the Clans as autonomous entities authorized to collect taxes, raise armies and wage wars in his name - a step that eventually proved his undoing. War of Terra The joint triumph over the alien scourge did not last for long, as Federation and Imperium both launched expeditions to learn about the fate of their homeworld. Turned out that life had survived on post-Final War Terra after all, remnants of civilization having largely sunk back into barbarity. Much of the planet was now an irradiated wasteland, occupied by nomadic tribes of scavengers and mutants, what little remained of civilization being concentrated into a handful of city-states. The dominant political power was a remnant of the Blue faction, devolved into a totalitarian theocracy called the Conclave led by a self-declared prophet. It was around the time of these expeditions that a Terran tribesman named Verloc D'Averan led a rebellion against the tyranny of the Conclave. Sensing a potential ally, both sides offered their support in hopes of using his faction as a springboard to reclaim the Homeworld. The Skargh too involved themselves in this affair, sensing an opportunity to avenge the humiliation of the Skargh Wars by claiming the homeworld of Terrans for themselves. The relentless scheming between the three powers led to increasingly-violent clashes, which culminated in a brief all-out war in 2124, when a massive three-way space battle broke out in orbit of old Terra. It was only through the intervention of the said Verloc D'Averan that the three warring sides were persuaded to lay down their arms and parley. Consequently, the Treaty of Terra was drafted, all three sides recognizing the sovereignity of Terra and agreeing to refrain from attempting to capture it, as well as delineating their borders with each other. The Treaty of Terra heralded the fabled Age of Peace, a period of unprecedented expansion and growth to which the Emperor was instrumental. Age of Peace Under Emperor's wise rulership, the Imperium reached the zenith of its might during the 22nd century. Thousands of new worlds were colonized, science and culture flourished, and Sidhae attained thereto-unheard-of living standards, prosperity being brought by trade with the Federation and the Skargh Empire. Despite the name, Age of Peace was a deceptively-calm period. While nominally maintaining friendly relations, all three galactic powers were in fact locked in an intense arms and colonization race. Intrigue and scheming between the three reached an all-time high during this time of peace and plenty. This golden age came to an end in 2030 when the Emperor announced his intent to retire from rulership in the near future. Agitated over the news, the powerful Clans began to squabble over who was to hold the throne in the future, each attempting to position its own candidate for the job. This bickering wasn't limited just to political conflict, violent skirmishes and assassination not being unheard of. Disgusted by the Clan bickering over the throne that wasn't even vacant yet, the Emperor used a loophole in the Statutes to propose a candidate for the throne himself - his own daughter. Technically the decision wasn't unlawful - the Statutes specified that a Clan may nominate a candidate for emperorship. Since "clan" was defined as "an entity in control of sufficient territory to raise at least one legion of troops and one armada of ships", and the Emperor's personal domain was sufficient to maintain 13 Guard legions and their accompanying naval armadas, technically his candidacy was valid. Four of the most powerful Clans, however, argued against it, pointing out that the Emperor and his Imperial Guard were never formally recognized as a Clan, thereby rendering his proposal invalid, and accused the Emperor of breaking with his own laws. The majority of lesser Clans, which had less hope of placing their candidate on the throne, chose to back the Emperor. Sensing an opportunity, the Federation secretly offered to back the dissident Clans should they choose to stage a coup, having ever felt uncomfortable of having a leader as powerful as the Emperor as their immediate neighbor. In the end, the dissident Clans would accept the offer, assassinating the Emperor on September 1, 2232, using a window of opportunity when his daughter was touring fringes of the Imperium in an effort to rally public support for the upcoming general election of a new emperor. The Emperor is said to have resisted his assassins fiercely, slaying many before succumbing to his wounds. In his last words, he is said to have pardoned his last assassin still standing. His last utterance is said to have been: "And so the madness begins..." Policies In his early career as the Leader of the Confederacy, the Emperor used primarily a Pan-European nationalist rhetoric, although presently it is dismissed as merely a matter of political expedience, playing the prevalent sentiments of xenophobia to his favour. After knowledge of the Skargh became more common outside the inner circles of the Confederacy, his efforts were dedicated more towards unification of all Mankind irrespective of ethnicity. The Emperor's policies during the late Confederate Era and beyond are characterized by transhumanism. The Emperor firmly believed that in order for Mankind to survive, it must embrace technology and discard the last vestiges of superstition. In practice this manifested as aggressive secularism and an extreme emphasis on practical implementation of human enhancement technologies, traits that would come to characterize early Sidhae. During the early Imperium period, the Emperor would also adopt aspects of Skargh political system, notably the Clans, as an effective means of a decentralized administration. This policy ultimately failed due to the Clans amassing excessive power and resources, to the point of being able to ignore the central authority of the Emperor. Although such a turn didn't exactly come unexpected, the Emperor did not anticipate the degree of treachery the Traitor Clans were willing to go through with in their quest for power. During the Age of Peace, the Emperor's policy was generally one of tolerance and coexistence. Under his leadership, Sidhae came to view themselves as the protectors of Mankind who should lead by example rather than force, and regarded the Skargh as rivals, but ones that could nonetheless be reasoned with. This is somewhat in stark contrast to the rampant xenophobia and paranoid isolationism of the later ages. Personal life Very little is known about the Emperor's personal life, him having been exceptionally discreet about it during his lifetime, and it having become borderline-blasphemous to inquire into in later ages. Even his contemporaries knew very little about his family other than that he had one, although this perception is quite possibly the result of all personal information being redacted from formal record in later periods when the Emperor's personality was deified. The Emperor is known to have had a beloved wife, today known simply as the Unknown Mother, who birthed his only child, the current Empress of Sidhae. Practically nothing is known about her, the Unknown Mother featuring in Sidh sacral art as a white hooded figure with an evergreen twig and a golden sickle in her hands, in an uncanny immitation of Death in Balto-Slavic mythology. The Emperor is known to have said that his daughter "has her mother's eyes", hinting that his wife probably looked a lot like their daughter - black-haired, green-eyed and pale in complexion. When she died sometime in 2220s, the Emperor is said to have become deeply depressed, this contributing to his fateful decision to abdicate. The Emperor was a prolific writer, writing on many subjects such as statecraft, strategy and philosophy, as well as on more mundane subjects such as various works of fiction (published under an assumed pen name). His political and philosophical writings were compiled after his death into an anthology now known as the Word of the Emperor, the central ideology-handbook-cum-holy-scripture of modern Imperium. The Emperor would personally train his daughter in statecraft and strategy, evidently hoping to groom an heir despite the formal principle of strict meritocracy enshrined in the Statutes. Perhaps he wanted to give the future Empress all the necessary skills to succeed and prove her own merit in Sidh society. As far as contemporary Sidhae are concerned, these efforts were remarkably successful - the Empress has remained on the throne for the past 400 years despite having to lead the Imperium through the most difficult imaginable circumstances. One known hobby of the Emperor was collecting weapons and militaria, his collection spanning the entire Terran history and also a good portion of the Skargh history. The Empress presently maintains and expands his collection diligently, it containing numerous invaluable artifacts thought long-lost outside the Imperium. Legacy In the present day, the Emperor is revered literally as a deity by most Sidhae - somewhat ironically, considering his own avowed secularist stance. Word of the Emperor, the anthology of his political works, is treated as a holy scripture, zealous Word Bearer preachers lauding his name and word to the masses, and political dissidents are ruthlessly persecuted as heretics. Copies of the Word and holy icons in his image are found in every Sidh home and institution, veneration of the Emperor having been elevated to literally religious levels by many. This personality cult extends to the Empress to a lesser degree, her having somewhat distanced herself from it at least for good form. Nonetheless, the majority of Sidhae regard her as divine in equal measure, being of the Emperor's flesh and blood. On the fringe worlds, bizarre cults glorifying his name have sprung up, Imperial authorities generally tolerating them as long as their message serves to stir up patriotic zeal. It is truly ironic that somebody who was an avowed opponent of superstition has come to inspire a whole new religion with himself as its central figure. Few Sidhae these days have the audacity to point that out. As far as the average citizen is concerned, however, the Allfather watches over him always and will judge his worthiness to enter the Halls of Eternal Glory and rest by his side when one's time comes. Although most Sidhae recognize the irrationality of such beliefs, most however choose to believe nonetheless, faith being a powerful tool to maintain sanity and peace of mind in this dark and violent time.